Camping Adventures!

We have been doing some camping that last few weekends! Just this last weekend it was me and Lynsey with my friends Coraleah and Larissa, and the weekend before was Brian and I with the kids with some friends, Katie and Mark (there are no pictures of this trip because I forgot my camera! Grrr!). Both weekends were a lot of fun! Unfortunately on the trip that we did with Mark and Katie, their daughter Alyssa broke her arm on the playground so they had to leave early - major bummer! The kids did really well all things considered, and we only had one freakout from Adam the first night (Brian took him for a little drive around the campsite and he was fine after that). Lynsey is quite the little camper - she loves sleeping in a tent and had a lot of fun both weekends. This last weekend we did have a few attitude issues from time to time, but all in all, not too bad. Mary and Ezra came to see up Saturday morning as well which was nice! Lynsey was thrilled to see her long lost cousin again:).

Adam just keeps on singing! He now sings the ABC song (which is of course the same tune as Twinkle Twinkle Little Star), and I'm impressed at how much of the song he sings! He gets all the way to "Q" and then loses it, but you can hear him trying to sound out the letters. So cute!

Lynsey starts Preschool next week! And so our life of driving our children from this to that begins:). She is very excited, and I'm fully confident that she will do great! We have been having some attitude issues lately, but I think she's just going through another period of testing us. As she gets older, these testing periods become more and more challenging (apparently she also gets more stubborn with age!) but I think we'll get through it okay.

Lots to say!

In the last week, Adam has decided that he has a lot to tell us all of a sudden! He says "hi" and "bye" in context, he said "more orange" today, and he walks around the house saying, "Go wa-wa (walk) ousside" and goes to get his shoes. He was whining at bedtime today and Brian asked him a bunch of questions about what he wanted to do, and when he asked if he wanted to "go nigh-night", he said "go nigh-night" and was perfectly happy to go to his crib. He now picks up a stool and moves it to a light switch, gets up on the stool and turns the switch on and off. I feel like he's losing a bit more of his baby-hood, which I have mixed feelings about!

Lynsey started swimming lessons on her own this week, and I was a bit choked up when she walked off with the teacher without looking back! She is doing so well - much better than I even thought. Her fear of water seems to have dwindled away to nothing and she is happily cooperating with everything the teacher is asking her to do. She seems very excited that she was "swimming" today (with some help!), so I think it won't be long and she actually will be swimming:).

I guess now might be a good time to let my loyal readers know that I am expecting another baby! I'm 12 weeks now, due February 28th. I have been feeling very good through this pregnancy, and I will give most of the credit to the fact that I've kept up with running. I actually did a 10k night race the other night, quite spontaneously (a friend had an extra race package!) and it was a lot of fun! I ran 9.77k in 58:24, which is on pace to run 10k in under an hour, my goal for the September 10k I'm signed up for. Guess I better make a new goal for that one! How about 59:30:). I have surprised myself at the amount of energy I've been able to muster for these runs - I've had times of nausea and feeling tired, but they have been few and far between. I'm very thankful at how good things have gone so far! Hopefully it keeps up!

Campout fun, my singing boy:)

I have fallen a bit off my usual post every week to ten days. Things have been a bit crazy. We were just gone for almost a week, up in La Crete for my niece's wedding and our Fehr family campout. We had a great time, and traveling with the kids went pretty well. We don't have the world's best travelers I'm sure, but I would say they're probably above average for the age they're at. We did not have to tent at the campout as originally thought, thanks to Tina and Danny sleeping in their house and letting us use their trailer. This turned out to be a huge blessing for us! We had a lot of fun, but as always, it was good to come home again.

Adam was a bit high maintenance the first day of the campout, but once he got used to his surroundings a bit he started having fun. He even walked outside in the rain without an issue! He slept very well for the most part, with the exception of our last night there when he kept crying on and off and we had to take him into bed with us. I don't know if I've mentioned this about him before, but a few months back, he started sucking on his food. He is so bad for this, especially at lunch time when he starts getting tired - he uses his food as a soother almost! Very frustrating, and man does he get mad when you have to pry that food out of his mouth at naptime. He sings all the time - still only Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, but he's added some of the words - "Kwinko Kwinko ha ha sar". It is so cute! I sing him so many other songs, and keep hoping to hear one of those songs come out of his mouth, but so far no luck.

Lynsey also really loved the campout! She loved Georgia's playhouse, and had a lot of fun playing with Georgia and Julia. We also stopped in at Brian's parents on the way home and she was thrilled about that, as she claimed she had REALLY missed Grandma and Grandpa Kroeker:). Sharing a room with Adam continues to work reasonably well most days, but some days are still a struggle (as I type, Lynsey is singing at the top of her lungs and Adam has just joined in - they certainly do like distracting each other!).

Our yard continues to make advancements. The fence is done, the deck is almost done (just need railing) and the retaining wall in the front got done while we were gone. They have to come back and fix it because it's not quite straight, but they're coming tomorrow so hopefully it's an easy fix and we can get some grass put in soon. I am really looking forward to having the landscaping done so we can start working on the basement (and by "working on" I mean "hiring out").